CHAPTER X

DISCOVERIES IN A NEW WORLD OF ICE

(CONTINUED)

Before going south it was determined to examine a large bay to the eastward for a possible opening into the Weddell Sea (Brialmont Bay). The morning was foggy; but by noon the mist raised a little and we found ourselves off a bold, black cliff (Cape von Sterneck), with an altitude of about fifteen hundred feet, on a projecting point of land, with a few islands to the north and one to the south of it. This bluff forms the eastern headland to the entrance of what we later discovered was a strait opening into the Pacific, (Belgica Strait). Passing within a few miles of the shore we examined carefully the glacial wall which everywhere offered a check to our passage eastward. The interior of the land was covered with a cloud which did not lift during the day, but the coastal edge was distinctly visible, and offered us excellent opportunities for surveying.

During the night of the 24th we steamed leisurely across the channel and in the morning we found ourselves under a clear sky before a series of icy

walls from 60 to 150 feet in height. From the sloping snows over these cliffs there was showered upon us a light which was perfectly dazzling to the eye. We selected here two points, where the ice had been partly melted, offering a footing and a place for making observations. The boat which took us ashore was loaded with men and instruments: Lecointe, with his nautical instruments; Danco, with his magnetic outfit; Racovitza, with guns and knives and what not, to take specimens of life; Arctowski, with his big hammer and dozens of bags for stones; Amundsen and the writer with snowshoes and camera, and the sailors with boat-hooks and guns to keep off and capture seals. If we had started out to make a month’s siege on the new lands and life we could not have been better supplied. The cove in which we landed (Harry Island) was a slope of rounded ice-worn granite rocks, upon which Lecointe and Danco fixed their tripods. Racovitza turned up the stones along the shore where he found mysterious crawling things which he hailed with as much delight as if he had found nuggets of gold. Amundsen remained in the boat and sought to secure a few Weddell sea-leopards asleep on a pan of ice, while Arctowski and I mounted the inland ice to study its character.

[Illustration:

Brialmont Bay. Cape Murray.

Sunrise and Sunset, Together, over the Eastern Shore of Belgica Strait.]

The view which we obtained from the upper slopes of the land-ice was superb indeed. To the east was an island (Two Hummock Island) with two bare hummocks about two thousand five hundred feet high, and from these, expanding in every direction, was a bed of ice and snow many hundred feet deep. Beyond this, just barely visible and about fifty miles from our position, was the feeble snowy outline of the great country (Dancoland) which offered us no hope for a passage eastward. Scattered about in the channel were numerous icebergs with petrels on their crests, as tenants. Near one of these rested the _Belgica_ as easy and as stationary as if at anchor. We were on an island; except at the sea line, however, there was not the slightest indication of land. Everything was buried under a weight of snow and ice, about five hundred feet in thickness. There were dome-like elevations and some irregularities, but all was cold, white and lifeless. To the west of this island there was a canal with several arms offering excellent harbour facilities, and beyond, apparently within a stone’s throw, though really five miles off, was Liege Island with Mount Brugmann, making the most glorious snowy landscape I ever saw.

Later in the day we followed this land northward and then proceeded to our first landing-place. It was a clear, silvery day, with only an occasional cloud rising out of the black waters of the north. The temperature was close to the freezing point, but the air was calm and dry. We were dressed in ordinary clothing, without overcoats, and when engaged in rowing, or climbing, our jackets were removed. Even lightly dressed, we perspired while trying to scale the cliffs of ice. The water was a joy to behold. It was like a mill-pond. Easy ripples deflected the sunbeams on the mirrored surface, and everywhere, on the surface and under it, could be seen the soft whiteness of the land-ice and the savage blackness of the _noonataks_. We kept the coast within five miles on our port side; at this distance it presented a scene such as one sees nowhere else in the world. There were in the foreground a few rocks too steep for snow to rest upon, black except on the north-eastern face, where a little moss added a flush of red and green; in the background everything was loaded down by continental ice. The inland ice, unlike that of Greenland, was irregular, and took the general outline of the mountain ridge under it. There was in view, for a distance of twenty miles, extending north-east and south-west, an unbroken series of mountains and ice-walls.

[Illustration: View Eastward from Neumayer Channel.

Part of Wiencke Island. Sierre Du Fief in the Background.]

[Illustration: Brooklyn Island.]

We spent the afternoon surveying this coast, and at 5 o’clock we were off the rounded peak (Mount Allo) which we first saw on the 23d. We then steamed again for the little island (Auguste) upon which we made our first debarkment. Here we rested under steam for the few hours of twilight, during the midnight hours, and on the 26th a number of sights were made for triangulation. The morning of the 27th was spent in a similar way. In the afternoon we steamed south to a number of small rocks (Gaston Islands), which we thought might be the islands laid down by Larsen on the east coast. Larsen claimed to have looked northward from his islands without seeing land, but we found it otherwise. The day was hazy, and, though the ice-wall of the coast was constantly visible, the interior of the country to both sides of us was obscured under clouds. A debarkment was made on one of the supposed Larsen Islands. They were three in number, of irregular shape and in size; the largest was not more than a mile in its longest diameter. The two largest islands had, in the centre, cone-like peaks of bare rocks, from which an ice-mantle spread out to the shore line, as it does on all the antarctic islands. The smallest one upon which we landed was not more than a half mile wide and three quarters of a mile long. There was about it nothing to indicate land except a shelf of volcanic rocks upon which we placed the geologist with his hammer, while the boat withdrew to keep from being dashed to pieces on the rocks. The tide was low, and if Arctowski had been left there, or if our boat had been lost, we should have been forced to climb a vertical cliff of ice one hundred feet high, or take to the rising sea of ice-water, as did the seals and penguins. Neither prospect seemed agreeable, and the danger of falling ice from the cliffs was such that we soon returned to the ship. The haze of the morning thickened to a dense fog, which entirely blocked out our view of the main shore-lines on both sides. We steamed westerly in a line over which the channel seemed to open into a large body of water.

The prevailing query on board was, “Is this the Pacific or the Atlantic?”

The weather continuing foggy, we took advantage of the time to augment our water supply. Up to this time we had made eight debarkments, but found no place where fresh water could be taken. There were about us a large number of icebergs. One of these offered an even side as a dock, and to this we attempted to anchor the _Belgica_ that we might secure ice from it, which could be melted and put into our tanks. The ship was taken to the side, while men with ice anchors and axes mounted to the berg. The men succeeded in placing the anchors, and also chopped a supply of ice; but the motion of the berg was such that it nearly stove in the ribs of the vessel in the effort to load. We were compelled to cast off and leave the unruly berg. A few days later, however, we found a small glacial stream from which we secured a good supply of water, which served us for several months.

Being still unwilling to advance into the unknown region before us while enshrouded in mist, we drew near a prominent mountain peak (Cape Anna), whose front was perpendicular and free of snow to the seashore. This peak was, as we learned on the following day, one of a number extending far into the south-west. We made a debarkment at its base. Here was life in profusion, as indeed it was on every rock where life could gain a footing. The noise from the birds which re-echoed from cliff to cliff was so deafening that our attempts at conversation were inaudible. The lower rocks were lined with snoring and grunting sea-leopards. Columns of vapour rose above the water followed by a hiss like that of a steam-engine, and a second later the blue back of a whale, with its long fin and ponderous tail, lashed the water into a foamy whirlpool. The great wall of land-ice, which rose to each side of the black cliff, gave us a shelf as a landing-place, and from this wall came frequent sounds like the explosion of a cannon, each followed by a great splash and a commotion in the water. With such reports, parts of the wall would constantly break away and explode into a million pieces, strewing the water with small fragments of ice, but not with icebergs. Above us rose a cliff to an altitude of about two thousand feet; out from this were projecting mantel-like rocks, which served as resting-places for cormorants and sea-gulls. Here the young ones, dressed in gray down, coaxed their mothers for food. We expected to see the little things drop from the narrow resting-places to be destroyed on our heads or on the rocks below, but such an accident rarely happened. Our greatest surprise here was the discovery of large quantities of moss and lichens, which gave the spot an appearance of life that to us, after having seen nothing but ice and black rocks for so many days, made it a true oasis.

From this point we were able to see in a splendid manner almost the entire length of the channel explored to this time; but we had not yet been able to make a running survey of the regions in our immediate vicinity. To get a better view it was decided to ascend to the interior of the land and scale one of the _noonataks_. In a bay (Buls Bay) to the westward the land offered an easy slope and to it we steamed on the following day. In our preparations for this ascent we made arrangements to camp on the inland ice for a week. A tent was taken, sleeping bags, and fur clothing were gotten out, and bags of provisions were packed, all of which was lashed on two small sledges. Volunteers were called for and those who responded were Arctowski, Danco, Amundsen, and the writer. Led by Gerlache we landed late on the afternoon of the 31st on a little point of land (Cape d’Ursel) with a northern or sunny face. We climbed the steep slopes for five hundred feet, and then camped for the night. The first night was one of stormy discomfort. A wind came out of the bed of a glacier above us, against which we could hardly stand. It took two men to hold up the tent, and the combined efforts of all hands to keep from having our effects scattered over the cliffs but a few yards away. On the 1st of February we made another effort and mounted a few miles into the interior, but fog and wind and crevasses made frequent halts necessary. The sledges were heavily loaded and were difficult to drag, and altogether the work of travelling and the discomfort of camping were such that the life was generally miserable. We succeeded, however, in mounting to the peak of a _noonatak_, with an altitude of about fifteen hundred feet, and from there Gerlache and Danco were able to get the observations necessary for the rough survey of our surroundings. The view before us was even more beautiful, if possible, than anything we had seen since our first entrance into this new white world. To the south-west there was an opening through a new land and into a new sea, which remained for us to explore later. To the north-east, descending into the white airy distance, were the two high banks of the new highway. Before us was a small island, shaped like a biscuit, and like everything antarctic, it was covered with ice to the water’s edge. Around this berg-like island were a number of icebergs, stranded on submerged rocks, and these, by occasional mysterious explosions, sent up the noise and the commotion of a thousand cannons. The opposite shore here retreated, making two large bays. In these bays were a number of islands, beyond which we could see clearly a narrow canal. The land which spread out under the southern and eastern skies offered no promise of a passage eastward; it had a series of black cliffs parallel to the coast about five miles beyond the edge of the sea, and beyond these the white outline of the land rose into the clouds.

[Illustration:

Lemaire Channel. Wandel Island.]

[Illustration: Cape Cloos.]

After a stay of seven days, which was our first camping experience in the antarctic, and the first in the history of south polar exploration, we gladly betook ourselves to the good old bark, which had returned from a cruise southward. During our absence the _Belgica_, under Lecointe’s direction, had been on an exploring cruise to the south. The effort was brilliantly successful, for Lecointe reported the discovery of several islands, upon one of which Racovitza had discovered the metropolis of Belgica Strait, a city of forty thousand penguins, and beyond these islands there was what promised to be an unobstructed highway into the Pacific. To examine this and the extension of the waters before us was our next mission; but Lecointe was not yet satisfied that the wide bay opposite our encampment (Wilhelmina Bay), did not extend through Dancoland to the Atlantic. During the night of February 6th we steamed across the Strait, and early on the following morning we were off Cape Murray. Keeping close to the shores we followed the great wall of ice which lined the shore-line from Cape Murray to Cape Reclus. At noon we rounded Cape Reclus, a long tongue of land-ice with a saddle-shaped mountain in the center, and entered a canal-like body of water, with the high ice-walls of Dancoland on the east and the shore lines of Nansen and Brooklyn Islands on the west. This was certainly a fairy-like scene; but a heavy fog settled down over us, blocking out, for a time, the savage peaks which pierced the heavy spread of snow and reared their towering heights far into the dull skies. In this fog the water had the colour and the glimmer of polished silver, while the walls of ice rising from the shore-lines stood out in great lines of ultramarine blue. We continued our search along the mainland, and in the evening we found ourselves opposite Sophie Rocks, which we had seen from the other side. The body of water through which we sailed on this day has been given the name “Chenal de la Plata,” in honour of the capital of the Argentine Republic.

A scene which I photographed at midnight on February 7th pictures this land in a faithful manner. The sun was just under the land-ice, painting the sky in orange and the land in gold, while gliding northward behind a great crested peak 4,000 feet in height. To each side of this black peak were rugged edges of stratified rocks which had once been under the sea, but were now raised to an elevation of two thousand feet, and buried under a sheet of ice of more than a thousand feet in thickness.

[Illustration: Ascending Icy Mountains.]

[Illustration: An Encampment.]

On the morning of February 8th we had completed a rough survey of the mainland eastward, and a running survey of the eastern banks of the Liege and Brabant Islands. We did not follow the channels leading northward and westward, nor did we prolong our examination of the lands in that direction beyond the banks of Belgica Strait. We steamed around Cape Anna, and then headed for a remarkable cliff, at the base of which we made our fourteenth debarkment. The day was a delight. The sun showered its full wealth of rays on the sloping snows with such force that the reflected beams made the air and the water perfectly dazzling. It was a photographic day. As the ship steamed rapidly along, spreading out one panorama after another of a new world, the noise of the camera was as regular and successive as the tap of a stock ticker. Not less than three hundred photographs were taken on this day. Surely, in the hundred miles of land which we discovered on this memorable day there were no landmarks which were not on our plates. Everybody was on deck with pencil and paper, some making nautical and geographical notes, others geological and topographical notes, and all recording the strange other-world scenic effects. Even the sailors, the cabin-boy, and the cooks were out with paper and note-books, taking long looks and then bending over their paper.

The landscape was not materially different from what it had been along the scores of miles which we had discovered during the days previous, but the clearness of the atmosphere made it possible to see to the limit of every point of the horizon. There were on this day many notable sights, but I shall mention only two. Early in the afternoon we saw on the northern side of the channel a great red cliff of granite. Its bare face was only about one thousand feet high, but, with its snow-covered base and its icy crest, it stood up boldly to an altitude of three thousand feet against the clouds, which now came from the south-west. A little farther south the channel was divided into two arms by an island, with a bold round rock as a headland (Cape Eivind Astrup). We took the western arm. This passage was not more than from two to five miles in width, and its length was about forty miles. We entered it at four o’clock, and steamed for six hours in a silvery fjord, whose walls of ice and rock rose over us to a height of from three to four thousand feet. At ten o’clock we saw the black sky of the Pacific and the terminating banks of the newly discovered Strait.

Here, within sight of the Pacific, was a large bay (Borgen Bay) surrounded by mountains (Osterrieth Mountains) fully three thousand feet high and covered with snow to their summits. In this bay we rested for the night.

The morning of the 9th was as beautiful as the day previous, and under the warm rays of the sun we made two debarkments to fix the position of the landmarks of the southern opening of the new Strait, and to make the usual scientific collections and observations. The time from the 9th to the 12th was spent in exploring this region. The country was somewhat higher than any we had seen farther northward. Glacial discharge had a greater tendency to be sent out by tongues into the sea. The northern cape (Cape Lancaster) has a long tongue of ice rising with an easy slope to a single mountain of moderate height. This agrees well in position with the Mount William of Biscoe. The southern cape (Cape Reynard) is made prominent by a number of needle-like peaks, which are too steep to offer a resting-place for snow. Between these two prominent capes is a large island (Wiencke Island), which has running through its center a ridge of high peaks (Sierra Du Fief), nearly free of snow. The northern point of Wiencke Island is a black bluff crowned with an even sheet of ice which breaks off into the water to both sides of the cape. This point has been named in honor of the faithful companion of Lieutenant Peary, the friend of Mr. Amundsen and myself, Eivind Astrup (now deceased). The southern cape (Cape Errera) is remarkable, because upon it is a unique pyramidal peak. Just beyond the southern termination of Wiencke Island there are a number of small ice-capped islands (Wauwermans Islands).

In the past three weeks we have been remarkably successful in discovering new regions. Without encountering any serious difficulty we have passed through a new highway from Bransfield Strait, two hundred miles south-westerly, through an unknown land to the Pacific, which has been given the name “Detroit de la Belgica.” This highway is perfectly free, in summer, for ordinary navigation. The scores of new islands which dot the virgin waters are inhabited by countless millions of penguins and cormorants, while great numbers of seals are in evidence on every accessible rock or ledge of ice. In the waters are large numbers of finback whales which, with the seals, will in the near future offer a new industry. To the west of Belgica Strait there are four large mountainous islands (Liege, Brabant, Grand, and Anvers Islands). These islands are probably guarded seaward by a great number of small islands. Over this group we have written the American name, Palmer Archipelago, in justice to the young Yankee sealer, Nathaniel Palmer, who first of all men saw the outer line of this still unknown coast. The various islands, mountains, capes, bays, and headlands have been named in honour of Belgian friends of the expedition. We have not, however, forgotten prominent outside workers, as is clearly shown by Neumayer Channel and Nansen Island. The honor of bestowing some names fell to the lot of each officer. Two islands, which it has been my privilege to name, are called Brooklyn and Van Wyck Islands; Brooklyn, in honour of the city of my home, and Van Wyck, in honour of the first Mayor of Greater New York.

To the east of Belgica Strait the shore-line is unbroken. It has many deep indentations, but there is no passage into the Atlantic. A continuous wall of ice, from fifty to one hundred feet high, fronts the coast everywhere. This land is from two thousand to four thousand feet high, with mountains farther inland perhaps six thousand feet in altitude. Every valley and every surface which is not perpendicular is buried by a sheet of never-melting ice. We were not able to follow the coast of this country far enough south to determine the interesting question whether it is continuous with Grahamland or not. This land has received the name Terre de Danco, in memory of our late faithful companion, Lieutenant Emile Danco.

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